earticle

영어

Licensed musical Rent has been a very successful musical in Korea. However, negative criticism about the delivery of translated lyrics has been dominant according to the bulletin board of the musical’s ticketing website. Therefore, this study aims to investigate translation strategies of the lyrics of the musical from the perspective of singability - the number of syllables, vocal singability, rhythm and stresses, and rhymes - in order to identify what contributed to the audience’s experience. The analysis results show an increase in the number of syllables in the TT, meaning syllables were added or notes were splitted, inappropriate placements of Korean vowels for high-pitch or ascending notes, and stress mismatches between ST and TT, thus making it difficult for the audience to distinguish the lyrics. However, proper Korean consonants were used for end-of-phrase notes, and the translator’s efforts to deliver the rhyme effect by using compensation strategies including creating new rhymes were witnessed. This study is expected to contribute to the expansion of research of musical translation into Korean especially in the singability area and hopefully to improving future translations of licensed musicals. However, since the data is limited to Rent performed in 2004, more recent developments in musical translation have yet to be studied.